


If You Find Me At All

by CentellaWrites



Series: The Rick and Lucy Saga [2]
Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcohol Poisoning, Angst, Blood, Blood and Injury, Dysfunctional Relationships, Ex-wife character (Rick and Morty), F/M, Heavy Angst, Heavy Drinking, Hospitalization, Hurt No Comfort, Probably the angsty-est thing I've ever written, Unresolved Emotional Tension, With a capital A, Young Rick Sanchez (Rick and Morty)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:40:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24648100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CentellaWrites/pseuds/CentellaWrites
Summary: First written July 2015Lucy, Rick's ex-wife, realizes her husband's alcohol abuse is getting out of hand when he almost dies of alcohol poisoning.Neither of them know how to handle it.
Relationships: Rick Sanchez/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The Rick and Lucy Saga [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1782028
Kudos: 5





	If You Find Me At All

There was too much alcohol in the fridge.

Rick leaned on the couch and threw back a shot of … something, he couldn’t remember. It had already been hours and the general fuzziness and short term memory loss was starting to kick in. His blood boiled at what felt like oven temperature and he felt inexplicably compelled to rummage through his workshop. Somehow he got himself up, though it was a slow ascension, and he stumbled way too much to keep the shot glass from falling to the ground.

That night went about as well as it could have. Lucy somehow convinced him that drinking would help him sleep, and since then, it seemed every inch of space anyone took up was wasted. He would stare off into a group of people’s void-like existence with discomfort bottling up inside, inexplicable discomfort. It was almost like he could see the path of everyone in the room, see their rise and futile breakdown. He was used to seeing through things, seeing the parts at work, x-raying machines with his eyes, but this was different. X-raying one human meant x-raying the other, and then the other, and then the other, as if they were carbon copies, all doomed to the same fate of meaningless existence. And each time this thought occurred to him, it would be shot immediately away by putting a drink up to his lips.

Tonight was one of those nights. Lucy somehow thought it was a good idea to get him out of the house, out and about like he used to be. And it’s not that he wasn’t a partier, but dear Lord did he just need his alone time. Each time someone talked at the party that night, he felt his skin crawl. He reached for every glass of wine and champagne and whatever they were serving he could find, eventually getting buzzed enough to start a small scene.

Lucy wouldn’t have any of it being an easily embarrassed introvert, and he ended up getting too overworked and yanking on her arm a little too hard. Nothing too bad, but enough to make her send him out the door, wanting no part in his problems for the rest of the night. This was either a mistake or a blessing in disguise, as now he was drunk enough to forget even why he was drunk in the first place.

After rolling up the sleeves on his favourite blue shirt, he entered his workspace, right across from his room. Without any rhyme or reason, let alone logical rhythm, he swiped his hand over the inventions on the table, sending them to the ground with deafening clanks. He reached his arm into a box but dug too far and suddenly felt a scuff against something extremely sharp. A wave of dull pain shot through his arm and he brought it up, examining a bubbling of crimson forming at the crook by his elbow and rolling down his forearm. He brought his other hand up to hold down the bleeding but couldn’t for long before his mind started hazily drifting. A quick glance at his red-covered hand and his vision started blurring, clouded by drunken stupor, so much so that the cut hardly hurt. He wobbled out the door, stopping to throw up on the doorframe.

By the time he got to the living room, his legs were having an even more difficult time keeping him up than before. He tripped on his tiny shoes and fell to the ground, hitting his head rather hard on the wood. A dim wave of black spots danced around his eyes as they darted from side to side, frantically fighting unconsciousness. His last bit of strength was exhausted in trying to get himself up. His injured arm trembled and could hardly keep his weight. His drool mixed with vomit dripped from his mouth like a baby’s and landed on the floor, pooling along with the dripping blood from his arm.

In a few seconds, the front door slid open. Lucy took two seconds to put her keys away before stopping short at the sight before her. Her gasp immediately made Rick’s intoxicated heart jump, but his body didn’t react and instead fell back onto the floor.

Lucy rushed over to her husband, a terrified breathing escaping her. When she said his name, she was already on the verge of tears. “Rick?! What did you do to yourself?” She ran a shaking finger along the bleeding gash on his arm, usually extremely sensitive to blood.

Rick knew he wanted to say something but both his mind and body wouldn’t let him. His words became dribbles down his chin and slowly Lucy’s voice faded away. His eyelids became increasingly heavy and he felt his dizzy head drop down on his arm as the room began to spin.

“Jesus Christ!” Lucy shouted, running a frantic hand through her hair before darting over to the phone. She struggled with dialing, her hands trembling an inordinate amount. “Pick up, pick up, pick UP!” she screamed into the receiver upon finally getting her fingers to steady on 9-1-1.

Rick finally felt the last bit of consciousness leave him and his whole body sunk into relaxed numbness.

After what seemed like an eternity, Lucy hung up on the emergency number and slid back to Rick, taking his heavy head into her arms and rubbing his wound. She could only let incoherent mumbling out, finding no words to express the amount of numbing anxiousness she was feeling.

The ambulance took what felt like forever to get to the house, but it wasn’t long before Rick’s eyelids snapped open and he was in a hospital bed.

“GODDAMN YOU!” was the sudden shocking shout that came from beside him. He met eyes with Lucy’s red face.

“Mrs Sanchez, please, try to calm yourself,” said the doctor next to her, placing a hand on her arm.

She was growing breathless with supposed rage, but there was genuine hurt and concern in her face. She brought a shaking hand down to the wound in his forearm, now bandaged in bleached gauze. His other arm housed a dripping IV.

It took him a minute to gain his composure, his eyes darting around, transfixed on every corner of the room. He inexplicably couldn’t find the strength to sit up. His tries were silenced by Lucy, whose face found its way to his in a ring of pecks and kisses. Tears started running down her drying cheeks but she wouldn’t stop.

Denial set in suddenly. He didn’t understand what he was feeling, but he needed her to stop. Now. The emotion dripping from her eyes was too much for him. In a slow but firm movement, he pushed her off him, looking away. He bent his bandaged arm and placed his hand on his face in an attempt to rub what he felt was his shame off.

“GODDAMMIT!” Lucy screamed again, her unstable voice beginning to crack. “I can’t fucking believe you!” She turned away and rubbed her face in her hands, letting out a wail before falling into another fit of crying.

The sound pierced Rick’s heart. Up until this point, he’d never heard her cry like this. He squeezed the IV arm against the hospital bed’s cushion and tried to hold back his own slow-moving tears. A minute of labored breathing went by and Lucy stormed out of the room.

* * * *

Not a word was said when they entered the doorway.

Lucy could barely hold onto the keys and Rick caught them when they slipped from her hands. She rubbed the side of her arm and glanced to the spot where Rick passed out in the room, the floor still stained with blood, spit, and throw up. She’d spent the whole night at the hospital and didn’t get a chance to clean it up. Now it just stared her down like a crime scene.

Rick breathed in heavily, obviously feeling the uncomfortable air. He reached over ready to take her in his arms but she twitched and pulled away. She shuffled over to the couch and lay in a crouched position, her face blank and eyes red and puffy.

Rick remained standing awkwardly at the doorway. After a sigh he closed the door behind him and headed straight for the kitchen, dodging the carnage he left on the floor on his way. His eyes were suddenly met with another scene he left last night; there was an open bottle of tequila on the counter, only ⅓ of the way full. Spots on the table and floor indicated he’d spilled some, but there were also several shot glasses scattered around the room. One even lay broken under the table. He turned his head to the corner of the left counter, where they usually kept their stash. Sitting there was a half-drunk Jack Daniels and two empty bottles of Jameson.

He sauntered back over to the living room. “Um …” he paused, his voice hoarse. “I-I-I-I-I can clean up th-th-th-th-the, uh -”

“I’ll do it.” Lucy’s voice was statically cold but somehow wavering.

“... okay.” Rick’s discomfort came to the surface again and he distanced himself from her, wandering aimlessly back into the kitchen. He sat himself down at the table and propped his elbows up. He sat there in silence for however long he thought he did before hearing Lucy shuffle to get up and walk up the stairs.

She flipped open the door to his room and allowed her body to collapse on his bed. She entangled herself in his clothes and rubbed her face into the pillow. His smell engulfed her and she scrunched up into a fetal position, timidly grasping onto herself. A numbness overcame her and the urge to cry was strong but fleeting. Soon she was able to swallow it, pushing it deep down to the pit of her stomach to save room for the comfort in his comforter. Exhaustion was eminent, she’d been in a constant state of intense emotion for hours. After a few minutes, she let herself drift off to numb sleep.

This was the basic procedure for the next couple of days. Lucy would avoid contact with Rick at almost all costs and regularly take trips to his room, falling asleep on his bed. He would come up to check on her and thought twice about snuggling up next to her, deciding to just sleep on the couch whenever he did. He hated to admit it, but almost above all else, the withdrawal he was putting himself through was among the hardest of emotions to deal with the past few days. At this point, Lucy was right, he couldn’t get to sleep without a drink. He wouldn’t dare touch one after what he did to her that night though, and the stress of temptation to reach back into the fridge was killing him.

One day, after he noticed Lucy took another trip to his room, he couldn’t stop himself from at least looking into the fridge. A blur of various beers was presented to him, lighting up angelically from the fridge light.

How much did he really hate himself? Enough to reach for one again? Enough to scare his wife again, perhaps now more than ever? Enough to put his life through more hell than it already was going through? Or enough to not reach for one and suffer through the constant strain against his head, the constant rush of blood in unbearable stress, the feeling of teetering on the edge of a cliff?

The thought occurred to him that he wouldn’t be thinking this much if he were drunk, and the threshold was crossed immediately. He reached for a cold one, muttering, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” to himself. When he closed the door, he took a swig and felt the cold heat run down his throat. He finished it in a couple gulps. It was a small rush, but after a couple days, it was like being flooded with oxygen again after being unable to breathe. He brought the bottle down onto the counter with a harsh thump and turned to his left.

Lucy was frozen in place at the end of the stairs.

Rick gasped. He couldn’t find words fast enough before a rage in her face boiled to the surface and she ran over to him.

“I hate you,” she said under her breath, her voice quivering. In an instant she grabbed the bottle from his hands and smashed it against the counter. “I HATE this,” she breathed, her voice growing in intensity as she slammed the fridge open and flung each and every beer onto the counter, showering the kitchen in a wave of broken glass.

“Lucy, fucking STOP!” Rick shouted, shielding his face from the shards.

“YOU STOP!” she shouted back, reaching for the stash in the cupboard. She emerged with three bottles of whiskey and slammed them one by one against the floor. She ran to the kitchen table and threw the last bottle out the closed window, another crash engulfing the room.

“JESUS CHRIST!” Rick ran towards her frantically and grabbed her arms, this time pulling her away from the broken glass now flying through the air.

“Where’s that Godforasken flask I gave you?” she panted, reaching into the lab coat he had on and fishing through its pockets.

“It’s not ON me!” Rick replied, gritting his teeth and grabbing her panic-stricken wrists. They began to fight back and she let loose some soft punches to his chest. They soon turned to pushes and shoves, enough to send him back a bit with an, “Ow, w-w-w-what the fuck?”

“GET OFF ME!” she screamed, her voice now fragile and cracking from the fit of crying a couple days ago.

Rick protested and instead tugged hard on her arms, dragging her into the living room. She grunted and struggled in extremely loud outbursts. He sat her down on the couch beside him and encapsulated her in his arms, causing her to slowly stop her attacking and let a loud wailing cry out. She buried her face in his shirt and grasped tightly onto his lab coat. He brought one arm around her waist and one around her shoulders, pressing her face into his chest.

He still somehow struggled with his words. “J-j-j-just …” He trailed off with a frustrated grunt. “Just shhh … I’ve, uh … I’ve got you …”

Lucy shook with each inhale, what little of them she took. She felt so meek in his arms, stability failing as she let painful tears absorb into his shirt. Her breath was staggering when she spoke up. “You have no idea …” she managed to spit out, stopping to inhale sharply. “NO IDEA,” she squeaked. “NO IDEA how hard it is to tell you what to do. I can’t ever do it, NEVER, I just sit by and watch you drink yourself into a fucking hospital because I’m not fucking strong enough or something. I don’t know if it’s your fault, you’ve got this thing over me, I have no fucking clue what it is, it’s something, I just don’t know,” her voice shifted into rambles. “I don’t know if it’s my fault, I wasn’t - I-I-I-I-I c-c-couldn’t even say anything to you when tubes were down your throat, NOTHING, my vocal chords w-w-w-were just fried, couldn’t find anything to say at all, it’s like not knowing how to breathe properly.” She paused to cry and latch onto him with a death grip.

Rick’s composure was broken halfway through her talk. He tried to squeeze his emotion back into the pit of his stomach where it belonged but it didn’t work and soon he felt the unfamiliar sensation of a tear down his cheek. The discomfort returned and rose to unbearable levels, but he wouldn’t let go of her. He looked away, not letting her even detect an inch of expression in his face. But the arm around her waist had other plans and decided to make its way to his cheeks, covering his wet eyes. He was now shaking along with her, trying to block out her crying from his ears, stopping himself from this emotion flood.

It didn’t last long, and soon it just bubbled to the surface like a wave crashing down. It didn’t ask him permission or anything, it just forced itself out in sheets. He covered his entire face with his hand and groaned, trying to force it back down again. An uneasy shiver ran through his body and he let Lucy go, running off to the kitchen and running his hands through his hair. He breathed rapidly, calming the tears down and letting them absorb in his face and back into his eyes. He returned but couldn’t look Lucy in the face when he grabbed her again, taking her vulnerable body into his now impervious arms.

They sat there for about an hour, and Lucy finally calmed herself so much that the emotion-aftermath sleep overcame her once again. He dared not move her and, now that she was under, allowed a few of his own quiet tears to fall.


End file.
